Senators: Massachusetts must be ready for climate change

Calling the Cape and Islands "a very vulnerable region," state Sen Marc Pacheco unveiled legislation Tuesday that would require future governors to develop plans for defending the state against climate change, an investment he said would be dwarfed by the cost of inaction against rising sea levels and severe storms.

BOSTON — Calling the Cape and Islands "a very vulnerable region," state Sen. Marc Pacheco unveiled legislation Tuesday that would require future governors to develop plans for defending the state against climate change, an investment he said would be dwarfed by the cost of inaction against rising sea levels and severe storms.

The bill comes two weeks after Gov. Deval Patrick announced $52 million in state funding to help cities and towns combat climate change, including a $40 million grant from the Department of Energy Resources to protect energy services and another $10 million for coastal infrastructure and dam repairs.

Pacheco, a Taunton Democrat who owns a second home in Hyannisport, applauded Patrick's investment but said the "amount of money, quite frankly, is not going to be adequate for the type of comprehensive study that is going to be needed in the future."

To continue on Patrick's path, Pacheco said he wants to enshrine that planning in state law, which he said would hold future governors' feet to the fire on climate change.

"Modest investments now in doing this planning will save us billions of dollars that could be spent in the future as a result of the impending threats of climate change," Pacheco said.

If the seller is willing, a "coastal buyback program" would allow the state to purchase property that has either been repeatedly damaged in severe weather or deemed at-risk of flooding from tides or rising sea levels. The land would then be used for recreation or conservation.

With state Sen. Daniel Wolf and other co-sponsors lined up in a semicircle behind him, Pacheco could not provide cost estimates but said a statewide risk-assessment would reveal the investment required to defend Massachusetts, particularly its transportation systems and electrical grid, against Mother Nature.

Wolf, a Harwich Democrat, said he hoped a carbon tax eventually was passed "to address that side" of climate change, and he likened the Cape and Islands to the "canary in the coal mine." Anyone watching televised coverage of a severe East Coast storm, he said, would invariably "see somebody at some part of the Cape literally measuring the erosion."

"That's the visible sign. We know that sea level rise and other impacts of climate change are having a dramatic and visible effect in our district but also across the commonwealth. And it will play out more and more across the commonwealth."

Henry Tepper, president of the Massachusetts Audubon Society's nature protection group, noted this fall would mark the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. If the superstorm had ventured 200 miles farther north and "taken a quick left," he said, Massachusetts would "still be dealing with the havoc left in her wake."

"Sandy was not so much an environmental disaster as she was a public safety and economic one," Tepper said. "And experts predict 10 Sandy-like storms by the end of the century. Chances are Mass. will be slammed by at least one."

The bill would require the secretaries of public safety and energy and environmental affairs to convene a committee charged with preparing a plan during the next two years. The assessment, Pacheco said, would use the "best available science" to pinpoint the areas most at risk to climate change, helping towns and cities adapt with infrastructure upgrades and changes to their land use and zoning policies.

In a moment of dark humor, Pacheco said he could not afford a Cape house by the water. But with climate change, Pacheco said, he might eventually have an ocean view from his Hyannisport vacation home.